Keeping an eye on the weasels of the world

The 1922 F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of Benjamin Button is about a child that was born with the characteristics of an 80 year old man that physically ages backward in time until he regresses back to a child like state, suffers dementia and dies as a baby; full circle of life, only backward. In both the the movie adaptation and the book Benjamin Button devolves to a child like state but in the book he devolves to a point where he attends kindergarten and is eventually cared for by his nurse. In both cases he evolves and eventually devolves from an intellectual perspective.

It seems to me that much of American society, especially that of the American left, is suffering from an intellectual devolution. What was once a very mature, thinking and proud society is now a childlike, selfish, emotional, irrational mess. There are plenty of examples to back me up on this.

While surfing through the channels on the television last evening I happened upon the newly revamped Late Night With the Very Unfunny Conan O’Brien. Figuring I needed to tune in and see how NBC has ruined the legendary legacy of classy hosts such as Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Jay Leno I decided to give it a watch. Within 5 minutes I immediately knew why classic liberal reviewers such as the Boston Globe, the Washington Post and Variety have dubbed Conan O’Brien as some sort of comical genius; they are idiots.

But it goes beyond not knowing the difference between the comedy genius of Craig Ferguson or the classy wit of Johnny Carson and what I saw on Conan O’Brien. We are witnessing a societal degradation, a sort of regression where the infantile skits of Conan O’Brien sitting spread eagle on a gynecological table (or something of the sort), the piggish antics of Sarah Silverman and the stupid asinine jokes of dinosaur David Letterman have replaced the genius of the people that elevated societal pressures into an entertaining dialogue that would be fine in most family rooms. Yes all late night shows of this nature are adult oriented, but there is a difference between witty commentary on adult themes and the infantile boorishness of the left leaning entertainment industry.

Deciding that I had seen enough of NBC’s new snorefest I switched over to Jimmy Fallon. Not much better. On Fallon I was treated to a bunch of morons clapping their hands in a lethargic contrived manner to American Idiot rockers Green Day; the unoriginal America bashing morons whose last album, while musically good, was essentially a 40 minute medley of rhythms and melodies that are ripoffs, err influenced mosaics, of  past rock anthems with modern day liberal anti-American themes. The thing I took away from this pathetic display was that our grandparents and their parents would never have sat in a theater and screamed praises to a bunch of morons that characterized them as idiots (at least not concurrently). They were too proud to do any such thing. Today’s generation have forgotten or never bothered to learn how their grandparents experiences, mannerisms and attitudes paved the way for the life they live today.

The devolution of society is not only limited to pop culture. It has manifested itself in the mainstream media which has devolved from its original self assigned task of watchdog for the people to their new status as democrat groupies. The media has regressed from professionalism to an extension of the adoring pop culture society, sharing little of the nose to the grindstone attitudes of the reporters that preceded them throughout history. They are an embarrassment yet are not embarrassed because the overall intellectual state of their profession suffers from a history gap as if dementia set in and erased the past. They have no clue that they are witless mouthpieces for the Obama administration and the Democrat Party. If they do have a clue they don’t care.

One exception to the classical sense of devolution is with the government. Rather than devolving from a centralized government to a smaller set of regional governments we are seeing a move toward more power at the federal level. This can only happen if society forgets the lessons of past civilizations and failed governments. Thus the Obama culture is a product of the intellectual devolution of society; a dementia of sorts. The people in power have no qualms with this mass attention deficit disorder because it is a path to retain and expand the power they have already amassed. If this keeps up we will need caretakers until our society eventually ends up like the protagonist in the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic. This is one fountain of youth I would rather not drink from.

The many effects of the Benjamin Button society can be witnessed in this weeks submissions for the week’s best Watcher of Weasels. Please enjoy these articles and pass them on to your friends. Check back on Friday or follow us on Twitter for the results.

Council Submissions

• The Provocateur - ACORN’s Past Due Taxes
• Bookworm Room - Seasick Warriors
• The Glittering Eye - The Perversity of the Publishing System
• The Razor - A Conservative Case for Animal Rights
• Right Truth - British National Party (BNP) – Are they racist? Anti-semitic?
• Soccer Dad - The cairo context
• Joshuapundit - Live In Cairo – The Lap Dance Of The Seven Veils
• Mere Rhetoric - The WH’s Eight-Step Plan For Detonating The US-Israel Relationship
• The Colossus of Rhodey - A tale of badly misplaced priorities
• Wolf Howling - Obama’s Cairo Address: What We Needed, What We Got

Non-Council Submissions

• Submitted By: The Watcher – Marc Epstein at City Journal - Not Worth the Paper . . .
• Submitted By: The Provocateur – Real Clear Politics - Geithner Brings the Laughs in China
• Submitted By: Bookworm Room – Jewish World Review - Frank Gaffney: America’s First Muslim President
• Submitted By: The Glittering Eye – Pajamas Media - The Reckoning
• Submitted By: The Razor – The Jacksonian Party - Straw, Stuffing and Notation
• Submitted By: Right Truth – StratFor - West Bank Settlements and the Future of U.S.-Israeli Relations
• Submitted By: Soccer Dad – The optimistic conservative - The next phase of WWIV part 2
• Submitted By: Joshuapundit – Ralph Peters - What Obama Taught Me- Wonderful Arabs, American Slavers, Wicked Jews
• Submitted By: Mere Rhetoric – Christopher Hitchens - When the Extreme Becomes the Norm
• Submitted By: The Colossus of Rhodey – The New Humanist - Free Market Faith
• Submitted By: Wolf Howling – Big Lizards - Sonia “Banana Peel” Sotomayor Slips Again – and Again – and Again…

See Also: Hot Air

For fun you can also participate in Michelle Malkin’s Death, taxes & Obamacare: Poster contest, Round Two

Update:We have a perfect real time example. The LA Time posted an article today: Aging man, 62, jokes about rape of girl, 14; (Letterman about Willow Palin). Letterman is obviously devolving although I never put him high on the charts of humanity anyway.

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